The results of an exploratory lattice study of heavy baryon spectroscopy are
presented. We have computed the full spectrum of the eight baryons containing a
single heavy quark, on a 243×48 lattice at β=6.2, using an
O(a)-improved fermion action. We discuss the lattice baryon operators and
give a method for isolating the contributions of the spin doublets
(Σ,Σ∗), (Ξ′,Ξ∗) and (Ω,Ω∗) to the correlation
function of the relevant operator. We compare our results with the available
experimental data and find good agreement in both the charm and the beauty
sectors, despite the long extrapolation in the heavy quark mass needed in the
latter case. We also predict the masses of several undiscovered baryons. We
compute the \Lambda-\mbox{pseudoscalar meson} and Σ−Λ mass
splittings. Our results, which have errors in the range 10−30%, are in good
agreement with the experimental numbers. For the Σ∗−Σ mass
splitting, we find results considerably smaller than the experimental values
for both the charm and the beauty baryons, although in the latter case the
experimental results are still preliminary. This is also the case for the
lattice results for the hyperfine splitting for the heavy mesons.Comment: 31 pages LaTex, with postscript figures include